22 
GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKEE. 
climbing, or rather hopping perpendicularly along the sides of 
the cage; and as evening drew on, fixed himself in a high hang- 
ing or perpendicular position, and slept with his head in his 
wing. As soon as dawn appeared, even before it was light 
enough to perceive him distinctly across the room, he descended 
to the bottom of the cage, and began his attack on the ears of 
Indian corn, rapping so loud as to be heard from every room in 
the house. After this he would sometimes resume his former 
position, and take another nap. He was beginning to become 
very amusing, and even sociable, when, after a lapse of several 
weeks, he became drooping, and died, as I conceived, from the 
effects of his wound. 
Some European naturalists, (and among the rest Linnaeus him- 
self, in his tenth edition of the Systema Naturae,) have classed 
this bird with the genus Cuculus, or Cuckoo, informing their 
readers that it possesses many of the habits of the Cuckoo; that 
it is almost always on the ground; is never seen to climb trees 
like the other Woodpeckers, and that its bill is altogether unlike 
theirs; every one of which assertions I must say is incorrect, and 
could have only proceeded from an entire unacquaintance with 
the manners of the bird. Except in the article of the bill, and 
that, as has been before observed, is still a little wedge-formed 
at the point, it differs in no one characteristic from the rest of 
its genus. Its nostrils are covered with tufts of recumbent hairs 
or small feathers; its tongue is round, worm-shaped, flattened 
towards the tip, pointed, and furnished with minute barbs; it is 
also long, missile, and can be instantaneously protruded to an 
uncommon distance. The os hyoides, or internal parts of the 
tongue, like those of its tribe, is a substance for strength and elas- 
ticity resembling whalebone, divided into two branches, each 
the thickness of a knitting-needle, that pass, one on each side of 
the neck, to the hind-head, where they unite, and run up along 
the scull in a groove, covered with a thin membrane or sheath; 
descend into the upper mandible by the right side of the right 
nostril, and reach to within half an inch of the point of the bill, 
to which they are attached by another extremely elastic mem- 
